I CHOSE to be a VILLAIN, not a THIRD-RATE EXTRA!!
Chapter 173 - 173: Two Supernatural (1)

Suspended in midair, Adlet's body continued its slow, unwavering ascent, defying gravity with effortless grace.

He had already risen past the height of a single-story building, his silhouette stark against the expanse of the heavens, and yet, his ascent showed no signs of stopping.

Flakey's voice rang out, magnified by his mana, carrying a tone of bemused awe. "WOW! Never thought I'd witness a student ascending to Heaven in my first class."

His gaze flickered between Adlet and the rest of his students, evaluating their reactions.

Scattered across the open grove, students sat atop rough-hewn tree stumps, their posture tense in deep concentration—until Flakey's amplified voice shattered the quiet.

Some blinked in confusion, snapping their heads toward him, their focus unraveling in an instant.

Flakey clicked his tongue, displeased. 'Tch, some of them have decent focus, but they're too easily distracted… None of them are quite like him.'

Tilting his head upward once more, he observed Adlet. The boy's eyes remained closed, his expression serene, utterly undisturbed by the commotion below.

Unlike the others, his concentration remained intact, his mind still fixed concentrated on his soul as his body flew upwards.

The quiet murmurs of the students faded as Frederick's gaze remained fixed on the sky, his expression unreadable.

One by one, the others followed his line of sight, and in an instant, astonishment spread like wildfire through the group.

Eyes widened, breaths caught—their disbelief painted across their faces as they took in the surreal sight above.

Adlet drifted higher, his body carried by an unseen force, the vast expanse of the sky swallowing him piece by piece.

He ascended with a serene inevitability.

"How is he flying?" someone whispered, the words barely escaping in awe.

"Is he really ascending to Heaven?" another student, naïve and impressionable, latched onto Frederick's earlier remark, genuinely believing in the spectacle before them.

But the momentary wonder soon gave way to calculated understanding.

The shock faded, reason seeped in, and the sharper minds among them grasped the truth—Adlet was no ordinary student. He was supernatural.

Leon exhaled slowly, his fingers curling into his palm as his mind worked through the implications.

'The competition just got harder.' If he wanted Rank 1, he'd have to push himself beyond his limits.

Gideon tilted his head, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Amusement gleamed in his eyes. 'Mr. Special really is Special.'

Althea crossed her arms, watching Adlet's ascent with newfound contemplation. She had been skeptical—dismissive, even. 'So, he wasn't all bluff.'

Elara stared at Adlet, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly as her mind struggled to reconcile what she was seeing.

She had been so certain—convinced that his power was tied to presence, to something imposing.

And yet, here he was, proving her wrong again.

'Just how many cards is he hiding?' she thought, frustration flickering beneath her awe.

Lilia's eyes remained locked onto Adlet, but there was no wonder in her gaze—only simmering hatred.

Her fingers curled tightly around the hem of her skirt, the fabric straining under her grip as resentment burned through her veins.

'He still doesn't look much stronger than before', Varnok mused. He observed Adlet's ascent with practiced skepticism, unwilling to be swept away by spectacle alone.

Roan exhaled softly, a knowing glint in his eye. 'He really knows how to gather attention outside the norms', he thought, admiration laced with curiosity.

Yet, for all the reactions around him, none were as shaken as Alina.

She stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat, eyes wide with something dangerously close to disbelief.

'S-Since when did that bastard become a Supernatural?' Her thoughts raced, unraveling every assumption she had held about him.

'Wasn't his Soul Trait supposed to be related to fire? Don't tell me… A chill ran through her. Did he lie? Did he fool the entire family into believing he had a fire-based Soul Trait—just so he could take an exile?'

Supernaturals were rare—so rare that their existence alone could upend the balance of power.

In this world, commoners made up the overwhelming majority, while nobles remained an elite, protected minority.

No noble house, least of all the Cindergarde House, would ever allow a Supernatural to slip through their grasp once they are born inside.

Alina knew this better than anyone.

Had her father been aware that that bastard was a Supernatural, he would have done whatever it took to keep him tethered to the family—even if it meant torturing him into taking the Oath of Death.

Only now, watching Adlet ascend, did she fully grasp the magnitude of his deception.

He had fooled them all—the entire Cindergarde Family, had been utterly blind to the truth.

Flakey broke the silence, his voice laced with something between amusement and genuine wonder.

"I have to say, in all my fifteen years of teaching, this is a first. It's not unusual to see a Supernatural once every four or five years, but to witness two emerge within a single year?"

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "This truly is a Golden Generation."

The words hit the students like a thunderclap.

'There's another one.'

Flakey's voice rang out, sharp and theatrical, slicing through the stunned silence. "First, we have that friend of yours who might just ascend to Heaven any moment now. And second is…"

His words trailed off as his figure flickered—vanishing from atop the tree stump in an instant.

Before anyone could process the movement, he was suddenly there, standing inches from Lilia.

His piercing gaze locked onto hers, and he leaned in slightly, his presence impossibly close.

"It's you," Frederick declared, his voice smooth yet laden with certainty.

Lilia tensed, her breath hitching as she instinctively flinched under his gaze.

Finding herself under the scrutiny of a teacher—this teacher—was unsettling in ways she hadn't expected.

"Unlike your friend up there, you were working hard to conceal your power," Flakey continued, his tone turning matter-of-fact.

"Clever attempt, truly. But the moment you saw him soaring through the sky, you slipped—just for an instant. Your concentration wavered, and that's all your Great Teacher Flakey needed to catch you."

He straightened suddenly, throwing his arms toward the sky with exaggerated flair.

"Ahh, see how great I am?" he muttered to himself, basking in his own declaration as if the heavens themselves should acknowledge his brilliance.

But the students weren't paying attention to Flakey's antics this time. Their focus had shifted entirely—to Lilia.

Had Ashok's eyes been open, he might have sensed it—the subtle, irreversible tremor in the grand design of fate.

A butterfly effect.

Lilia's secret was never meant to be exposed so soon.

She was supposed to remain just another student, another contender, until the final moments—

The moment when her identity would unravel, revealing her as the daughter of the Head of the Hell Bringers, the villain whose shadow loomed over the world's fragile peace.

That revelation was meant to be a turning point, the kind that shakes the foundation of everything.

But now, because of him—because of this one deviation—the story had twisted.

The weight of that premature exposure settled on Lilia like chains tightening around her limbs.

She was no longer just a face among the crowd.

She was a spectacle. A name muttered in hushed voices. A force standing under the glaring scrutiny of her peers.

The classroom shifted, the whispers rising, thick with unease and speculation.

"Wait—wasn't she the one fighting with Adlet yesterday?"

"And now both of them turn out to be Supernaturals?"

The murmurs rippled outward, each voice feeding into the growing tension, threading itself into the atmosphere like an undercurrent waiting to pull someone under.

Lilia remained still, but the fabric of her skirt strained under her fingers, clenched tight in a grip she didn't loosen. The heat of prying eyes bore down on her, each stare pressing against her skin like unseen weights.

The balance had shifted.

And there was no going back.

Lilia's breath came short, sharp, barely controlled.

The weight of eyes pressing against her was suffocating, a silent force crushing down on her, demanding answers she wasn't ready to give.

From the very moment, Lilia stepped into their midst, Isolde had felt something off.

A quiet instinct, a wordless certainty. 'That girl never gave me good feelings from the start', she thought, her stare unwavering, sharpened by distrust.

Elira, sitting not far from her, let her own thoughts fester. 'Another one of those born against nature'.

As an elf, the lingering traces of tolerance she had for Lilia vanishing in an instant.

Supernatural—an existence that defied reason, an anomaly that unsettled the order of nature.

Elira developed a little favorability for Lilia after seeing her going against Adlet, sinking beyond redemption.

Yet Lilia remained indifferent to their silent judgments.

The whispers, the narrowed eyes, the shifting energy of the classroom—it meant little to her.

She had long since learned that gazes carried weight, but only certain ones mattered.

And there was one in particular she couldn't ignore.

Lyssa.

Unlike the others, Lyssa's stare wasn't filled with suspicion or hostility—it was something worse. Something far more dangerous.

Vigilance.

Lyssa had spent her entire life mastering the suppression of emotions, honing the discipline of clarity.

She had been trained, conditioned, molded into someone who could stand above irrationality.

And yet, at this moment, her thoughts wavered.

Lilia was a Supernatural.

And with that truth, something in Lyssa shifted.

The certainty she had held—the cloud of familiarity, the quiet conviction that Lilia was dear to her—began to dissipate.

Unraveling thread by thread.

'Why do I consider her a dear friend?'

The question dug deeper, scratching at the foundations of her mind.

She hadn't even known Lilia for a week.

Their connection had been effortless, smooth, as though something had seamlessly clicked into place between them.

She had considered Lilia a friend. But was that feeling hers to claim, or had it been placed there? Had she been deceived?